Princess Leia Organa Solo is dead.
General Poe Dameron is now in charge of the galaxy's best hope for peace and prosperity, but the ideals for which Leia died may simply have to wait. The Resistance is in shambles, but its heart still beats.
The First Order, meanwhile, struggles to consolidate its power. A few determined citizen outbursts have taught General Hux that his burgeoning empire may be stretched too thin. In spite of this, the new Supreme Leader seems more invested in unearthing the secrets left by his deceased mentor than with the health of his military.
Hux has chosen to temporarily abandon the total destruction of the Resistance in favor of reinforcing his troops against multiple, unconnected grassroots uprisings….
The warship was beautiful and impressive, an old design with continual upgrades making it one of the most versatile and toughest fighting vessels in the midrange class. Unfortunately, it had not been fighting an opponent in the midrange class. It drifted slightly, small explosions issuing from multiple fractures across the entire hull, multiple alarms periodically drowned out by the steady, repeating klaxxon urging all hands to abandon the ship. Nobody abandoned. There was simply nowhere left to go. As the explosions began to accelerate, the engine cores themselves finally gave way, and the entire ship exploded into an impressive - but short - display that left nothing behind except for a few random chunks of metal scrap. It had not even taken down a single one of its opponents; a fleet of First Order ships hung in space nearby. Several of them were damaged, but none of them destroyed.
Commander James Malachi viewed the wreckage from the bridge of his First Order cruiser. "Good work, Lieutenant Commander Powell," he told his second-in-command. She simply nodded in return from her position down in the 'pit' while he stood at the front window of the bridge, resisting the urge to look behind him at his crew.
Malachi had a young, serious face. His uniform was carefully kept, the older decorations no less shiny than the new. Since he had been suddenly promoted to 'Commander' due to the sheer number of officers lost on the Supremacy, he had attempted to grow a mustache and beard as a sign of maturity for his men to cling to. It was still more than a bit thin. "I'll be able to report this as a victory. I'm sure General Hux and Supreme Leader Ren will be pleased," he noted, finally allowing himself to turn around.
"You can go ahead and do that, sir," his second-in-command replied, climbing out of the pit and onto the command deck proper. She always managed somehow to look both calm and stressed at the same time. Even now, she was speaking while glancing over a number of viewscreens, keeping an eye on things. "We're done here, and the planet is secure. I'll handle the after-action reports and start collecting the repair lists." Her uniform was always just a little more rumpled than his, and he was far too wise to call her out on it as another, stricter commander might have done.
"Prioritize our ship for repairs," he told her. "Chances are pretty high that they'll ask for our fleet and leave us to patrol the area in case pirates try to take advantage of the weakened planetary defense. We had best get what we can, when we can."
"Just one cruiser for the entire planet?" She looked up, giving him her full attention. "Are they serious?"
"I believe they are," Commander Malachi replied quietly. No need to broadcast this through the entire ship, though he had no doubt that it would make its way through as rumor. "But this is just a phase in a larger operation, and I'm sure our numbers will rise as the threats diminish. And those who distinguish themselves during this period…"
Powell clearly wasn't swayed by his attempt at optimism, but, true to form, she did not remark upon it. "Yessir," she said blandly, and simply returned to her work.
"Mimban is secure," Commander Malachi reported, his image faded and fizzy on the holoviewer on the middle of the round table in the conference room. "For now. I would recommend that the fleet patrol the system for at least a few days, in case of pirate attack."
"The rest of the fleet must rendezvous with the Fifth Fleet as soon as possible," General Hux told him. "We need reinforcements elsewhere. But you will remain and patrol the system."
Malachi's shoulders slumped just slightly, but he didn't sound surprised at the news. "Yessir."
Hux figured that a little morale-boost was in order. "Good work, Commander Malachi," he offered. "The First Order will remember your efforts, and faithful officers will always be rewarded in time…"
The young commander's lips tightened in a slight, wry smile. He drew himself up, saluted properly, and vanished from view as the communication ended.
General Hux turned slightly, surveying the conference room. Supreme Leader Kylo Ren seemed to be brooding about something, a slight frown on his face, a distant look in his eyes. At least Hux could tell whether or not he was sleeping through the meeting, now that the young man no longer wore his helmet. At least the others were alert. One of them spoke first, an older fellow who had actually served the Emperor in the Imperial Military many years ago. "He's very young."
"Excellence knows no age," Hux responded crisply. He was well aware of his own relative youth.
But the old general had not meant his words as a criticism of Hux. "Yes. And Malachi is a fine officer. We need more like him. But there's the problem - you can't give yourself good, seasoned officers by compelling the masses to serve. That's where you get your cannon fodder."
"And where do the seasoned officers come from?" Kylo Ren asked wryly. Hux's lips tightened slightly. Well, at least the man was taking an interest.
"The way you get seasoned officers is by promoting a group of people and losing over half of them in combat," the old general responded grimly. "The survivors are then 'seasoned'."
"Even if we had them, I'm not sure it would matter that much," another general piped up. "We don't have the ships to put them on. We need more star destroyers."
Hux turned his gaze to Kylo Ren. "We need more funding. More money to buy the star destroyers and to train the officers that we need to serve on them. We're also frighteningly short on TIE fighters after that business on Crait." That was meant as a mild dig. This had not been the first time that Kylo Ren's single-minded pursuit of his own ends had cost them dearly.
"Yes," Kylo Ren sighed, but his mind was clearly elsewhere.
Hux took a deep breath. "Our most recent push to quell local rebellions has been largely successful. We will redeploy the fleet and handle any new threats as they arise. The Resistance is even worse off than we are. It will take them longer to rebuild than it will take us to solve our.. temporary.. staffing problem. Then, we will be able to obliterate them from a position of power."
A moment of silence fell. Kylo Ren abruptly interrupted it. "We only accept officers as pilots," he stated, leaning back in his chair. "So move up the fighter pilots whose fighters we haven't replaced. That'll solve both the officer shortage and the fighter shortage for a while."
Hux thought that this was a terrible idea. "Yes, Supreme Leader," he answered, keeping his voice carefully level. Neither he nor the First Order needed him to be smacked around like a rag doll right now. Morale was shaky enough as it was.
He flinched slightly as Kylo Ren suddenly leaned forward, slamming his hands down on the table, but the man's face was not angry. "Alright. Are we done, then?" the Supreme Leader of the First Order asked.
Hux was more than happy enough to cut this fiasco short. "Yes, Supreme Leader."
"Good," Kylo Ren declared. He promptly rose and left the room.
Hux took another deep breath, frustration mixed with relief. "We will redeploy the fleet," he repeated firmly, "and handle any new threats as they arise. Dismissed."
Kylo Ren entered the quarters of the Supreme Leader.
This was obviously a room in a state of flux. Various statuettes had been stacked up against the far wall, where a golden curtain hung. Most of the rest of the room was unadorned ship-gray and ship-black metal. The double mattress had the bedding of a single sleeper, unmade. The table in the middle of the room was cluttered with wires and various pieces of mechanical detritus; the head of a protocol droid here, an oscilloscope there, with an empty space in the middle. Glancing around as though he expected anybody else to be in the room, Kylo Ren opened the closet doors. He quickly and dismissively pushed aside several hangars holding identical gold-woven bathrobes and reached the shelf in back to take down a curious object, a large triangular prism, black, glowing greenish deep inside. He nearly tripped over one of the fallen gold robes as he stepped back. He kicked it to the side in disgust. He set the prism on the table.
"Now, then," the young man murmured, "Let's see if we can figure out what you really are."
The oscilloscope gave back some bizarre readings that he could make nothing of. The droid's head shorted out one of its eyes when he tried to connect the device to it. He had a list of components and computers with him and patiently tried each one in turn. The targeting system simply did not respond. The holoprojector sparked, fizzled, and started a small fire that he calmly extinguished by smothering it out with the Force. Finally, he hauled a navigational computer from a TIE fighter, along with nearly half the front console, onto the table. The droid head and several other components toppled to the floor. Kylo Ren connected the device and turned on the console. It started beeping. Shaking his head in irritation, he moved a few of the leads and attached a couple more, trying a different configuration.
Suddenly, the little viewscreen in the console came alive. He watched in undisguised excitement as lines spread across an image full of dots, charting a path through systems, around planets, and, finally, through a clouded nebula. The path ended at a planet; Kylo Ren tapped on the console, doing a lookup for more information, and the name came up on the screen. Exegol.
"Ah," he mused, looking back at the triangular prism. "I know what you are now. You're a Wayfinder of some sort. And this… this must be where he came from. He kept this, so that he would always know how to get home. Well, now it's my turn."
Kylo Ren unconnected the device and placed it gently back on the closet's back shelf. Lost in thought, he found himself staring at the line of identical golden robes.
"I need an escort," Supreme Leader Kylo Ren announced to General Hux, striding down the hallway towards him. "Four or five people, in TIE fighters. I've already ordered my fighter to be made ready. We leave in an hour."
Hux stood aghast. He much preferred that meetings like this be requested and conducted in meeting rooms instead of in hallways where any crew could walk by at any time. He also preferred to maintain some form of decorum on this ship, and his Supreme Leader stood there with an armload of some sort of fancy gold cloth. Part of the cloth trailed on the floor behind him. Even Snoke had more dignity than this. "Supreme Leader," he protested. "The redeployment of the fleet-"
"I leave that in your capable hands, General," Kylo Ren answered wryly.
That was just as well, really. Hux didn't think for a moment that Kylo Ren really liked him or trusted him. But Snoke's prize apprentice had never really had his heart in the actual details of running a military, and he was better off pursuing his mysterious lead than getting in the way and affecting morale with his general indifference. "Yes, Supreme Leader," he responded, trying to avoid showing the mixture of annoyance and relief on his face. "I will see to your escort immediately."
Kylo Ren paused for a moment, then suddenly heaved the load of gold cloth at Hux, Startled, Hux caught it the best he could. He realized that he recognized what it was, and he could not hide his shocked reaction. "These are Supreme Leader Snoke's…" He hunted for the right word. "…vestments!"
His current Supreme Leader had already begun to stalk away, but he paused and turned back to face Hux. "Yes. High quality silk mixed with thread made of actual gold." Kylo Ren smirked darkly. "Sell it and buy a star destroyer."
Hux stood rooted to the spot, horrified. As Kylo Ren strode away, however, he looked down at the pile of cloth and began to think about it. Most of the shock had faded from his expression as one of his officers spotted him in the hallway and approached him in mild confusion, and he quickly wiped the rest of it away as the man neared him. "Send Captain Phasma to my office," Hux ordered, as the officer saluted. Then, almost as an afterthought, he shifted the burden of cloth to the officer's arms. "And then go sell this," he added wryly, "and buy a star destroyer."
Although Hux's office was not a far distance from this hallway, Captain Phasma was already standing inside when he entered. Hux felt somewhat uneasy in her presence. There wasn't even much to see of her - she always wore her helmet now, even when she was among officers. Her chrome suit had darkened in several areas, the original silver finish marked liberally with blue, purple, and charcoal gray in the areas where it had burned from the wreckage of the Supremacy, and the eye sockets of the helmet glowed just faintly with an eerie internal light. As he entered, she saluted properly. He returned the salute. "General," she offered, waiting for orders. No small talk with this one.
"Yes, Captain," Hux replied. "Our Supreme Leader has chosen to pursue a private lead of some sort. He has required an escort. I want you to take five people whom you trust, crew three TIE fighters, and follow him." He paused, his tone shifting from acrid to serious. "He has chosen to not divulge his plan. I want you to keep an eye out-" He paused for a moment, tightening his lips. "Stay alert," he tactfully corrected himself, "and report back."
"Yes, General," she responded. Hux dearly wished he could read the expression on her face. Then again, given the rumors he'd heard, he probably didn't want to see her face at all. It hardly mattered. One thing he could trust Phasma to do was to look after her own interests and do what she needed to survive.
"Dismissed," he told her. As she moved for the door, the light glinted off of one of the unravaged parts of her armor, bringing another thought to his mind. "Given the situation, Captain, you might want to… change your uniform for this assignment," he pointed out.
"Understood," she said shortly, and then she was gone.